Live: Major clashes break out near Bethlehem after Israeli raid

After launching land-levelling operations in Budrus, a village near Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, the Israeli army uprooted around 400 olive trees, Wafa reported.

Israeli forces prevented landowners from accessing their property or halting the operations, which affected 35 dunum (3.5 hectares) of agricultural land.

The uprooted trees were decades old, and they represented a primary source of livelihood for local residents.
Abdel Nasser Marar, head of Budrus village council, said such actions are part of a systematic policy to expand buffer zones next to Israel's separation wall.

Two US officials said that the White House sent a "stern private message” to the Israeli PM after Raed Saad, a top Hamas military commander, was assassinated by Israeli forces, in violation of the ceasefire agreement, Axios reported.

The message, defined as “angry”, is one of several signs of friction between Washington and Netanyahu's government ahead of the implementation of the ceasefire deal's second phase. 

The US officials said the Israeli government had not consulted or notified the Trump administration ahead of the assassination strike. 

According to Axios quoting an unnamed US official, the message to Netanyahu was: "If you want to ruin your reputation and show that you don't abide by agreements be our guest, but we won't allow you to ruin President Trump's reputation after he brokered the deal in Gaza."

The governor of Tulkarm, Abdallah Kamil, said he was informed of a major upcoming demolition plan by the Israeli army in the occupied West Bank town, AFP reported.

The plan, set to take place on 18 December, will see 25 residential buildings, home to at least 100 families, destroyed in Nur Shams refugee camp.

Israel has conducted thousands of demolitions in the West Bank over the past year.

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Tom Barrack, the US special envoy to Syria and ambassador to Turkey, in Jerusalem on Monday to discuss the second phase of the ceasefire agreement in the Gaza Strip, according to Israeli media.

Mike Huckabee, American ambassador to Israel, was also present at the meeting.

Imprisoned Palestinian prisoner Abdullah Barghouti, who is serving 67 life sentences in Israeli prisons, has lost 43 kilograms and his right hand was broken due to abuse in prison, Quds News Network reported, citing his lawyer Hassan Abbadi.

Barghouti is also being held in an extremely cold cell without blankets or winter clothing, with cold air sometimes deliberately turned on, the report said.

Israeli soldiers have been pictured lighting Hanukkah candles in occupied territories in Syria, the West Bank and Gaza, sparking criticism on social media. 

An image circulated of a Hanukkah menorah being lit in Syria’s Mount Hermon on Sunday. 

Israel, which has already occupied Syria’s Golan Heights in contravention of international law since 1967, expanded its territory in southern Syria following the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s government. 

In December 2024, it seized all of a UN-patrolled buffer zone on Mount Hermon which had previously separated Israeli and Syrian forces in the Golan Heights.

Israeli troops were also pictured lighting Hanukkah candles inside Tulkarm refugee camp in the occupied West Bank. Some social media users linked it to plans by Israel to establish a "Greater Israel".

Read more: Israeli troops light Hanukkah candles in occupied Syria, West Bank and Gaza

A wave of "drastic, irresponsible" aid cuts this year have inflicted unnecessary pain on refugees, who are being vilified while their suffering is exploited by traffickers and politicians, the United Nations said on Monday.

Outgoing UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said this year had been a perfect storm of successive crises for the world's forcibly displaced people, who were estimated to number 117.3 million people in mid-2025.

He condemned the "unending atrocities" committed in Sudan, Ukraine, Gaza and Myanmar, but also the "sudden, drastic, irresponsible and short-sighted collapse of foreign assistance... inflicting so much unnecessary pain in its wake".

The number of people forcibly displaced worldwide has almost doubled in the last decade, but funding for international aid has slumped, not least after the return of US President Donald Trump to the White House.

Gaza’s civil defence teams recovered 20 bodies from the rubble of the Salem family home in the Al-Remal neighbourhood of Gaza City, Quds News Network reported.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese rejected Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's accusation that Canberra's recognition of Palestinian statehood fuelled antisemitism following the deadly shooting in Sydney.

In an interview with ABC News, Albanese said he doesn't accept a link between Palestine's recognition and the shooting attack at the Hanukkah celebration in Bondi Beach.

"Overwhelmingly, most of the world recognises a two-state solution as being the way forward in the Middle East," he said.

"This has been an extraordinarily traumatic 24 hours," he said. "My job is to provide support for the Jewish community, is to make it clear that Australians overwhelmingly stand with the Jewish community at this difficult time."

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said on Monday he had suggested to European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas that US representatives would brief EU foreign ministers on President Donald Trump's Gaza peace plan.

"I suggested to the High Representative that Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, the US President's envoys, could address the European Union's foreign ministers today to provide an update on the implementation of President Trump's peace plan," Barrot said.

A Palestinian child was shot and injured by Israeli forces on Sunday evening in Jalazone refugee camp, north of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, Wafa news agency reported, citing local sources.

Sources said the child was shot during confrontations that erupted between citizens and Israeli forces during their raid on the camp.

Israeli settlers stormed Islamic religious sites in the town of Awarta near Nablus, in the occupied West Bank early Monday morning, Wafa news agency reported.

Security and local sources reported that Israeli forces stormed the village and forced shop owners to close their businesses before several buses carrying hundreds of settlers stormed the religious sites, where they performed Talmudic rituals.

Three families in the Batn al-Hawa neighbourhood of Silwan in East Jerusalem were forced to leave their homes on Sunday following orders issued by Israeli authorities in favour of the Ateret Cohanim settler organisation, Wafa news agency reported.

According to the Jerusalem Governorate, the eviction included resident Um Nasser al-Rajbi and her children. Her son, Nasser al-Rajbi, and his family were forcibly evicted, and an ambulance was needed to transfer his 29-year-old son Awad, who is in a coma, and his 24-year-old daughter, who has a disability. The eviction also affected her second son, Aed al-Rajbi, and his family.

The Governorate said the evictions are part of an ongoing policy of displacement in the neighbourhood. Since June 2024, Israeli authorities have carried out forced evictions affecting 13 homes in Batn al-Hawa.

Mahmoud Basal, a spokesman for Gaza’s Civil Defence, said that more than 90 percent of the buildings in the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood are at risk of collapse after sustaining severe damage from Israeli bombardment and are no longer safe for habitation.

Good morning, Middle East Eye readers,

Here are the latest updates:

• Human Rights Watch says Israeli attacks on reconstruction equipment and civilian infrastructure in southern Lebanon constitute war crimes.

• Hamas' Gaza chief Khalil Al-Hayya confirmed the killing of the group's senior commander Raed Saed in an Israeli strike a day earlier.

• Israeli Radio reports that Israeli soldiers mistakenly shot and seriously wounded a settler, thinking that he was a Palestinian who "attempted a stabbing attack" against the soldiers.

• Israeli helicopters are firing on areas under occupation control beyond the yellow line east of Khan Younis, Al Jazeera Arabic reported.

• Gaza's Ministry of Health warned that 52 percent of medicines, 71 percent of medical supplies, and 70 percent of laboratory supplies have reached zero stock.